50 TRUE BEAR STORIES.

not want Mountain Joe to stay at home
or keep sober. He wanted to handle all
the money and answer no questions. A
drunken man and a boy that he could bully
suited him best. Ah, but this man Reese
was a mean fellow, as has been said a time
or two before.

As winter came on the two blacks were
fat as pigs and fully half-grown. Their ap-
petites increased daily, and so did the
anger and envy of Mr. Sil Reese.

“They’ll eat us out o’ house and hum,”
said the big, towering nose one day, as the
snow began to descend and close up the
pack trails. And then the stingy man pro-
posed that the blacks should be made to
hibernate, as others of their kind. There
was a big, hollow log that had been sawed
off in joints to make bee gums; and the
stingy man insisted that they should be
put in there with a tight head, and a pack
of hay for a bed, and nailed up till spring
to save provisions.

Soon there was an Indian outbreak.